NEW ENTRANCE FOR EXPANDED TOY STORY MANIA! AT WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT (LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla.) Ñ Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida will take guests to infinity and beyond when Toy Story Land opens June 30, 2018. This new 11-acre land will transport guests into the adventurous outdoors of Andy’s backyard. Guests will think they’ve been shrunk to the size of Woody and Buzz as they are surrounded by oversized toys. Guests will whoosh along on a family-friendly roller coaster, Slinky Dog Dash, take a spin aboard Alien Swirling Saucers and score high on the midway at the expanded Toy Story Mania! (Disney)

The project highlights what observers already know – Disney is using its stable of Pixar movie characters as fodder for more interactive elements at its parks worldwide. This new land in Florida is slated to open a week after Disney California Adventure’s new Pixar Pier, which also includes additional Toy Story elements.

The original Toy Story movie, telling how toys come to life when their owners aren’t around, was released in 1995 and became a huge hit, followed by two sequels, with a third sequel now in the works. The main characters, cowboy Woody and space ranger Buzz Lightyear, have become iconic characters in popular culture.

New elements that will be located inside the new land at Walt Disney World:

Slinky Dog Dash: A family roller coaster where people will ride inside the coils of Slinky dogs.

Alien Swirling Saucers: People fly inside flying toy spaceships.

Toy Story Mania!: A new entrance has been designed for this existing ride that looks like a colorful box of a toy game

Design elements that include Tinker Toy style lampposts.

Woody’s Lunch Box, a fast-food diner that serves food and floats.

“With set pieces, staging, attractions and experiences Toy Story Land represents the best of Walt Disney Imagineering’s collaboration with our storytelling partners at Pixar Animation Studios,” Bob Chapek, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts said in a prepared statement. “This new land will place guests inside the wondrous world of Woody, Buzz and their pals — and invite everyone to experience the joy of being a toy.”

Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida will take guests to infinity and beyond when Toy Story Land opens June 30, 2018. This new 11-acre land will transport guests into the adventurous outdoors of Andy’s backyard. Guests will think they’ve been shrunk to the size of Woody and Buzz as they are surrounded by oversized toys. (Photo courtesy of Disney)

Artist rendering of a new, high-energy Incredibles-themed float will add more Pixar fun to the Paint the Night parade at Disney California Adventure park. (Photo courtesy of the Disneyland Resort)

Toy Story Land at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida opens June 30, 2018. Located at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the new 11-acre Land will make guests feel like they have shrunk to the size of a toy in the setting of Andy’s backyard. Guests will whoosh along on a family-friendly roller coaster, Slinky Dog Dash (pictured under development), take a spin aboard Alien Swirling Saucers and score high on the midway at Toy Story Mania! (Photo by Matt Stroshane)

Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida will take guests to infinity and beyond when Toy Story Land opens June 30, 2018. This new 11-acre land will transport guests into the adventurous outdoors of Andy’s backyard. (Photo courtesy of Disney)

The reimagining of Disney’s Hollywood Studios will take guests to infinity and beyond, allowing them to step into the worlds of their favorite films, starting with Toy Story Land. (Photo courtesy of Disney Parks)

Artist Concept of the entrance to the new Incredicoaster at Disney California Adventure. Courtesy of the Walt Disney Co. 2017.

Artist rendering of the new Pixar Pier marquee that will stand at the entrance to the new area, slated to open June 23 at Disney California Adventure park. The Pixar Pier marquee will be topped with the iconic Pixar lamp later in the year. (Disneyâ¢Pixar/Disneyland Resort)

Unofficial Disneyland historian David Koenig, author of Mouse Tales and other books about the world’s first theme park, described the new land as “a quick patch to a theme park that has a giant crater sized hole in it.”

The Hollywood Studios will be the location for the eagerly anticipated Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge land (that will be mirrored in Anaheim’s Disneyland,) slated to open in 2019, but otherwise was lacking ride capacity, Koenig said.

He said the new land was hurriedly created to offer something new to guests, similar to the way A Bug’s Land was created and opened in October 2002 in Disney California Adventure to meet criticism that that park had too few rides for children when it opened in 2001.

According to Koenig, the new Alien Swirling Saucers is built on the same design as Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree in Cars Land, just with a different theming, and the Slinky Dog coaster was also built with off-the-shelf plans. The new Woody’s Lunch Box will replace the former Pizza Planet restaurant, he said.

Marla Jo Fisher was a workaholic hard news reporter before she adopted two children from foster care at age 46, picked up a scruffy dog along the way and somehow managed to keep them all alive, at least so far. She now writes the Frumpy Middle-Age Mom humor column that appears in the Orange County Register weekly. Due to her status as the cheapest person alive, she also writes about deals and bargains for the Register, including her Cheapo Travel column which also runs in newspapers around the country. When she's not having a nervous breakdown, she's usually traveling somewhere cheaply and writing about it.

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